I’ve been meaning to install Windows 7 on a laptop with a Meteor Lake chipset, Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, Nvidia RTX 40 series GPU (also intel Arc GPU). I copied the Win7 SP1 install.wim (including the NVME hotfix and SHA256 update slipstreamed on it) on a Win10 installation ISO image removing the install.esd file. I installed the motherboard’s NVME drivers which are Win10 drivers (this will likely cause trouble down the road) and was able to install everything up to the first reboot. Once the system restarted it complained about winload.efi file with unverified signature in c:\windows\system32 directory. Can anyone help me overcome this? I find it odd that it asks about winload.efi exactly in the root of system32 directory, where I don’t think this file belongs to (I could be wrong): c:\windows\system32\winload.efi. Is it possible that this is caused by the Win10 installer confusing things? Although after examining the file in question, it’s signature from a pre-SHA256 update is a SHA1 signature, but the same file after a SHA256 update has a SHA256 signature. The system is probably looking for a SH1 signature but finding a SHA256 one instead, therefore complaining? I am thinking I should retry the whole thing without applying SHA256 update, that is, installing just Win 7 SP1 and nothing else, to see if this issue resolves itself. If an installation is successful, I could install every needed *.msu manually. I am not interested in ESU updates as this machine would never connect to the internet, however (just for testing I guess) if USB ports were to work I have WIFI and Bluetooth dongles as well as an external (USB powered) sound card with its own Win 7 drivers. I have slipstreamed some USB 3 drivers in the install.wim, hoping they work. The laptop can switch to either discrete-only, integrated-only or both gpu’s simultaneously. I know there are no Win7 drivers for the RTX 40 series (as well as the intel Arc GPU), but I am rather interested in seeing if I can install the OS on this machine. I have external access to the hard drive in case any mods are required on the installed OS. Things I’ve done facilitate troubleshooting: Disabled Secure Boot in Bios Disabled in Bios ALL CPU E-cores (8 total) and Low Power Efficient-cores (2 total) Disabled Resizable-BAR (just in case) Disabled Virtualization (just in case) Windows 7 only sees 4 Cores of the 6 total as 2 were disabled (or 8 if Hyper Threading is enabled). I would appreciate any guidance in this, unless someone knows for sure this is a no-go, in which case I would appreciate anyone convincing me to stop wasting more time on this. Thank you.
I do not recommend you to try Win7 on your laptop. 1. Graphics cards will not properly work. Propably stuck on Windows logo. Even if the monitor can work under VGA mode, 3D will not work. 2. The trackpad (probably under I2C controller) will not work. Although I have recently ported hidi2c.sys successfully, I find the cursor can move but not working well. For CPU 6 cores issue , maybe these posts will help: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...ing-win7-on-new-hardwares.89805/#post-1896480 https://forums.mydigitallife.net/th...ed-drivers-collection-for-new-hardware.90425/ Considering winload.efi issue, it is better to show the error code. I used to install Win7/10 through the following steps in WinPE: 1. Create an EFI partition and target partitions. 2. Using dism++ or other installer to release the image file (*.esd or *.wim) to the target partition. 3. Manually make the boot options through bcdboot.exe. If dual boot, I will then edit the BCD file by BootICE.
Hello, thank you for your response. I am expecting for drivers to not work or peripherals to act funny. Once I get to that point it will be fun to see what I can do like connecting an external gpu and other things. The main focus though is on at least trying for the OS to properly install, like many other people were successful in doing so with other platforms. Very interesting links you provided, thanks. I will study, then try the steps you suggested I follow, and will report back hopefully with a different scenario to share. Thank you.
I also purchased a 14th gen recently, and really wanted Win 7 but after studying and seriously considering all the compatibility issues, I pulled out of the idea. I don't want a system that needs continues monitoring or maintenance. 2nd best possible choice was Windows 10 1809 LTSC which in my opinion was the last client OS after which MS completely overtaken the system and do with what they like, through updates and more entangled dependency chains. But after studying it, and my drivers, I again came to the conclusion that it's not viable either, given hardware -> Drivers -> Software incompatibility. Newer Intel hybrid CPU's with P and E cores further complicated the situation. So then I considered last Win 10 22H2 and it apparently had everything matured enough to support a notebook manufactured in 2025. But then came the question, how can I make it so that it behaves exactly as Windows 7 ? I kept modifying, monitoring, adopting, then modifying again until I reached a satisfactory level. My build has no updates, no diagnostics, no telemetry, no SCM changing services status on whim, no defender, nothing else that annoys, demands focus or changes something in the background I didn't approve of. It's more like an appliance OS than a serviceable OS that MS made it. I have also completely stripped as many moving parts as possible example: WaasMedic so the OS becomes inert and doesn't have a brain that thinks for itself. Lastly, I fixed the Control Panel redirections etc, making it fully functional like Win 7 and fixed the dark theme to be fully dark unlike the MS abomination dark made that has 70% things in white in the dark mode. It's been around 5 months, it continues to work as expected, no surprises. Behaving exactly like Win 7 but with full compatibility with hardware and drivers. Of course, this is still not Windows 7 but this is the best that was possible without having to worry about things suddenly breaking, not working, weird errors etc This by no means imply that you shouldn't pursue your own goal of Windows 7, just leaving it here if somebody also has the same goals, and this might work as a fallback, alternate plan.
The laptop is configured with Win 10 22H2 (the same way you did BTW with the same purpose too). Like you, I want to see if Windows 7 can at least be installed on the laptop. I’ll see how far my patience will last though. I decided I am going to try a few things I read on other posts on this forum and other places on the internet, and if none of it works I will have to quit. If anyone has some good starting points to begin from, I’ll follow as much as I’m allowed to. Like you, also doing it for others who are interested in doing the same or to just see if Windows 7’s life can be extended even further. I use Windows 7 on an older system and am fine with that, but I'm just curious to see if it installs at all on this laptop. Thank you for sharing that.
I have a short term memory lapse disorder so I don't remember what I did, but it included, swapping lot's of binaries from older versions of Win 10 and some from Win 7, many registries and some other scripts. I had to patch the binaries to make it work on 22H2 but although I kept the whole project organized, all the files and how to's etc with what I observed and how I changed the stuff, I accidently partitioned the ssd, all my project files were on and now I have the final image but nothing that helped me built it. I can send you the .wim, if you can investigate and see what's different to figure out yourself.
This sounds like exactly what I, and possibly many Windows 7 users, would love to have in a Windows OS today. If you have, or know of an ISO available like this it would be very appreciated. I don't know if I'll ever have the time & energy to put a "Functional Windows" together.
@ceo54 Thanks for the offer, but that's not worth the effort for me to change a couple of redirections. I was hoping for a few simple reg tweaks.